As many of Da WWD! Hui know, I observe a lot of things. I like to people watch and see how our society is in "real life".

Besides Downtown, Costco is definitely a place to watch... especially wen get da kine samples.

Da Keiki noticed one demonstrator showing chocolate granola bars and wanted to "sample" but she wasn't ready yet. She said she had to open da ENTIRE box of granola bars before she could start sharing and it would be a few minutes.

I thought it would be an excellent time to teach (reinforce) to my daughter da value of being patient. I told her dat if she wanted a piece, to wait patiently in front of da stainless steel stand and not to block da walkway. While just da top of her nose was eagerly peeking ovah da stand, several people peered ovah looking to see if da samples were ready but it was not.

There were quite a few dat were pretty rude about it and even one lady - yeah, an adult - had da nerve to stand IN FRONT/SIDE of Da Keiki literally cutting in da line of two.

Wassup Wit Dat!

There was anoddah kid about 10 years old dat was standing behind Da Keiki in line and had a look like, "isn't dat wrong... but das an adult so I no can say anything". I just stood wea I was about 12 feet away watching to see wat Da Keiki would do. Da "adult" waited about twenty seconds then left. Auwe dat kine! Da Keiki just smiled at me wen da wahine left still patiently waiting to get her hands on da goodie. Ahhh, childhood innocence.

Aftah wat seemed like 15 minutes of waiting, da samples was finally ready..... and of course da SWARM ensued like flies on doo-doo. Da Keiki being "first" turned out to be third and da ONLY ONE to say "Thank You" - a three year old.

*tear*

But I did have a life "altering" moment shortly aftah. As we walked up to da front to meet Da Wife, I turned da corner with da stroller and there was cart turning from da blind corner. Luckily I saw it, slowed down and turned to da side as da teenager wasn't paying attention. Wen he realized he almost took out Da Keiki wit da monstah truck cart he said,

"Ohhh! Sorry, Uncle."

Uncle?!? Heh? Do I even look remotely close to "Uncle" status?

WASSUP WIT DAT!

I mean really, is dis da face of "Uncle"?

Thought you guys could use a laugh on dis hot and humid hump day Wednesday.

17 Responses to “People”

Howzit BL!
At the Maui Costco there was this lady with an empty juice case box tray going around taking 2 samples of everything saying her husband is in the car. She didn't even have a shopping cart. WWD!

howzit that there are individuals that relish the idea to visit every demonstrators' table to sample whatzit? Some probably have there meals there. Like the the lady that was pandering for husband's share. As a diabetic wouldn't touch anything. Keep on teaching you keiki the right path. Long run pays dividends.

I worked as a food demo-er for a few years. It made me rather distainful of the 'general public' and thankful I'll never work in retail again. Just that giving away free food and drink bring out the worse in people. The values of people go down in proportion to the area they live and no wonder some areas got bad reps. Town had the more polite mannered people except the then Holiday Mart. I did a canned nectar demo and went on my 15 minute break. I covered my iced juices with cardboard, hid the cups and went on my short break. I came back to find the cardboard on the floor and people just taking whole cans to drink while shopping. And apparently it was a whole bunch cuz more than half of the well stocked juices were gone. Now, my samples were in those small 4 oz cups, these people took the whole frickin' can and I saw them walking around with these cans in the store. No shame. Of course they weren't going to pay for it either. When did a demoer ever give out a whole can of anything. And nothin' I could do about it.

When I did a Pepsi demo later on there, I not only covered the sodas with the cardboard but put weighted Pepsi 2-liter crates on them. THAT they didn't touch.

And sorry to say but there is one ethnicity that just about eats and drinks everything with 4ths, 5ths, etc. Coming back over and over enough to eat one whole bag of chips. No shame either those guyz. I use to cringe when I see a whole family of them cuz to them this is lunch for all.

I also observed too many families view the supermarket as a giant playground. Once in the store, the kids run free and wild esp. when it's a wide aisled place. This was a huge covered playground.

The truly best place to demo? Military exchanges. High volume but the parents to the kids are well behaved and mannered, those were dream jobs. As demoers when we all got together we all agreed, once we went into a store we turned off our intelligence. We were just smiling serving robots cuz that was the only way to deal with the public. We were insulted, hit upon, snobbed by and the worse ones. The ones that want you to become their new best friend so they just stand next to you talking and talking. Sir (usually they were old men) I'm here to do a job, not hired to talk or even listen to you.

@N - I have seen some bad behavior by people in Costco trying the samples. I always do my best to be nice to the demoers. When I worked retail it would be the old men that liked to hang out and talk when I tried to work. I always figured they were lonely and/or their wives did not like to listen to them at home.

People watching at Costco is interesting. Especially the samples that take long time to make, the stand is deserted and once the product is ready its like flies on ----, never seen people move so quickly! What irritates me the most is when I'm 3rd or 4th in line and the people in front of me take extra for their whole family or start passing it to family members who are out of the line, by the time I get to the front its all gone. Another thing is when people grab their sample and just stand there and eat it so the line no move. Town Costco is like the wild west, I don't even bother to get samples over there because people push, shove and cut. Sometimes the demo person will say something to people who take extra or cut in line but lots of time they don't bother, and I can't say I blame them, I don't think they get paid enough to deal with that kind of stuff that should be common courtesy.

Braddah Lance
Good ting you live Hawaii
Hea at da costco near SFO, da people wait not in one line, but in a swarm. Blocking the whole walkway; no can get pass. you gotta yell for tellum move. An so right, people come for eat dinna.